Johnny Damon Would Consider Tigers

The Tigers are consideringJohnny Damonfor their designated hitter job and the interest is mutual. The 38-year-old free agent is open to returning to Detroit, where he played in 2010, tweets John Lowe of the Detroit Free Press.

"I have interest knowing that I loved playing there and they are a team built to win," Damon said.

Damon is just 277 career hits away from the 3,000 hit milestone. He hit .261/.326/.418 with 16 homers and 29 doubles in 582 plate appearances as the Rays' DH in 2011. Relative to the league as a whole, he hit well (110 OPS+), but DHs averaged a better batting line this past season: .265/.340/.429. The Scott Boras client has played in at least 140 games every season since 1996. I examined Damon's free agent stock in November, concluding that another modest one-year deal is likely.

Comments

I think Damon would be a perfect fit. He could slide right into the 2 spot. Fill that gap. Fill in the need for the left handed bat. He would also add speed at the top of the line-up. He stole 18 bases last year. He also has some power in which he hit 16 homers last year and could see him taking advantage of the shorter left field porch like Avila did last year.

Too bad Boras can’t convince some poor sap of a GM that Damon has the arm of JD Drew, rather than that of a 6 YO girl… As it is..Nobody in their right mind wants him, except as an ancient DH without power. Vlad IMO is more appealing in that regard.

He’s only saying that because he’s desperate. His wife hated the idea of going to Detroit in 2010 originally. Can’t say you can blame them, from Boston and New York to Detwa? That’s quite a precipitous drop in lifestyle.

Johnny Damon would consider signing with any team that will pay him money and let him play reguarly as he’s trying to get to 3,000 hits. Any team he plays for he will declare that they are his “favorite” and that he’s always wanted to play for them.

He’s probably better off, production wise, going back to play for the Yankees as he has a good swing for the short porch in right, yet they probably won’t play him any more than four times a week, and that won’t get him to where he wants to be on his hit list. He’s in a race with father time.

I wonder if he makes 3,000 and then he’s elected to the HOF (which he should not be and I don’t think he will even with 3,000) whose hat he’ll go in under? This man has been a total mercenary. I’m not knocking him for it, but he truly is a man without a team. My guess is by default he’d go in as a Royal, the team he came up with and played the most for.

I think he’d consider going in under any cap, but he doesn’t get to pick (the Hall does), but if he did, I’m pretty sure that the Red Sox would now be at the bottom of his list.

Based on comments I’ve read, he felt the Red Sox front office trashed him on the way out and the media played along, and worse, he was unhappy with how Red Sox fans treated him after he left, booing him reguarly, throwing things at him in the OF, etc., as opposed to how Yankee fans welcomed him back and cheered him after he left that team. He was so annoyed, that when the Red Sox tried to reaquire him for the stretch run in 2010, he refused the trade.